


rest is easy

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Future Fic, Multi, POV Rose Tico, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Redemption, first order wins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: She hates the words, “There’s just nothing you can do, Rose.”





	rest is easy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



The Resistance dies by slow inches, in drops of blood spilled from a thousand cuts across a multitude of years. It’s a testament to its fury, dedication, and tenacity of its members that it lasts as long as it does, but all things perish and even the Republic—the old, not the new, though it, too, failed—couldn’t stand against superior forces forever. Sheer mathematics overwhelm them in the end.

Rose Tico doesn’t believe it’s possible.

But then again, she wouldn’t believe in the apocalypse even if the galaxy splintered around her either.

She isn’t always the best judge of these things.

-

With an almost compulsive regularity, she turns her medallion between her palms. At first, she claims it improves her dexterity against the forward march of scar tissue across her knuckles. The joints still ache and she’s not as quick with her fingers as she used to be. Her fine motor control is shot, the least she’d been willing to give to the cause, but the only thing taken from her since Paige. When she looks at Finn, she realizes anew that she’d sacrifice everything to bring the Resistance back.

She knows now there is a place in her for self-immolation.

-

She wakes in the night sometimes, her sides aching and her throat hoarse and her cheeks wet. _Redyellowwhitewhitewhite_ flashes behind her eyelids and pain, so much pain, races phantom-like up her arms. Shivering and shaking through the worst of it, she bites back the screams her unconscious had selfishly loosed while she slept. Finn doesn’t need to hear that. And on this rusting tin can of a vessel, he must hear all of it. He doesn’t come for her, not after that first time when she’d nearly struck him in the face and shrieked at him to leave her alone.

-

Sometimes, she startles at dawn, ship’s time, with laughter on her lips, happiness chased through her by the most fanciful dreams. She likes those mornings, likes better the feel of Finn’s body against hers, his weight realer than real. Only occasionally does she allow herself have this with him. His smiles get her through her weakest moments, his kind words, his kiss-filled assurances that it won’t always be this bad. They’ll rebuild. They’ll win one day.

He’s so different from the man she’d met so long ago.

She’s different, too, but that’s not a good thing, she doesn’t think.

-

They can’t all be dead, she knows that. It’s unrealistic. She knows of at least three people personally who were on missions away from their various bases—bases, they’d rebuilt so much after D’Qar—who wouldn’t have been there during the… the…

She and Finn aren’t the only ones.

But in all the galaxy, she feels like they are. There’s no way to contact the others. If, indeed, there are others, not with FO infiltrators, strike teams, and battalions scouring the galaxy for them. It eats at her, this enforced helplessness.

She hates the words, “There’s just nothing you can do, Rose.”

-

There’s work in the galaxy for those without qualms and Rose, who’d once been intimately acquainted with them, no longer feels compunctions about much. She won’t kill, but she lies, cheats, and steals with ease. Finn hangs back, guides them toward more honest labors. Funds marked for black market drug trades go missing. Valuable cargo is freed, though not always for a price. She threatens criminals for handsome fees.

It satisfies her as much as anything can these days, hurting evil where she can.

Her palms are red and not all of it now is from the stain of blood.

-

“We’ll find them,” Finn insists, has insisted, will continue to insist until the end of time. It’s not that she doesn’t believe him, she just doesn’t think it’s as easy as all that.

“How?” she always asks in return. “When?”

Every time, she hopes he has an answer at which she can point herself and pull the trigger. And every time, she is disappointed. He can only press his lips together, avoid her gaze, annoyed and powerless. She knows the feeling.

She remembers a time when he would have rather run than believe in anything.

She knows that feeling now, too.

-

They pull a less illegal job than usual on Lothal, another dry, dusty planet for Finn to hate and for Rose to smile about. This, at least, is normal; she likes this.

They’re thrown into jail anyway. “Disturbing the peace,” is the charge. “In Firstie pockets,” is what Rose hears. Luckily, no one here knows their faces, not yet, not enough that a bit of make-up, a different hairstyle, and the passage of time hasn’t seen them through yet another close brush with the law. It’s lucky that Supreme Leader Ren has tunnel vision and a larger goal to pursue.

-

“I’m glad you think this is funny,” Finn says, crossing his arms, unamused. He doesn’t dare say more. There are eyes and ears everywhere, even on Lothal.

“I don’t,” Rose answers, but she knows her Rebellion history. Constable Elitha is an aberration here. Lothal will never be the FO stronghold General Hux wishes it could be. She believes in little, but she has this. And a good feeling they’ll get out of here unscathed.

“We didn’t even _do_ anything,” and though the complaint is light enough, she hears their past in every word.

“This time,” she replies, familiar. “I know.”

-

Her fingers prance over the generators that hold the force-field in place across the wide entrance to their cell. Power blazes in those white-blue shimmers and she almost cannot stop herself from touching it. She wonders if this is how Rey feels—felt, no, _feels—_ when she uses the Force. To be so close to that much raw potential? It would stagger Rose.

“What are you doing?” He comes to stand behind her, wrapping his hands around her shoulders. They are warm even through her canvas coveralls. She reaches up to cover them with her own.

She has no answer.

-

The wind changes with a rattle, a thud, and a stammered curse. It startles Rose from her daydreams and pulls Finn from the fitful slumber he’d fallen into. He stirs in her arms and her mere touch against his temple is enough to draw him back. It’s a miracle that something so simple still works; she’s grateful that at least this one thing between them isn’t broken.

“I don’t know,” she says, answering the question he doesn’t ask as he pushes himself upright.

But they find out soon enough regardless. Whether they want it or not.

“Hello, dearest f-friends of mine.”

-

He’s dressed better this time. At least, he’s wearing his boots. But he’s still got the faded, fraying hat. His face is grim, though, and if she wouldn’t be electrocuted for it, she’d punch him right through the force field.

Elitha, perhaps not understanding how much trouble she’s courting here, lowers the field and pushes DJ inside. DJ-for-don’t-join. DJ-for-cowardly-bantha-kriffer.

He stumbles into Rose’s grip. Perhaps fate wants her to get what petty justice she can, because she feels no remorse when she shoves him to the floor.

“T-that’s not very nice.”

Rose crosses her arms. “I’m not very nice.”

-

His grin sharpens itself on the neat rows of his white teeth. “That’s what I always liked about you.” Getting his balance just right, he pops to his feet. “You are so very…” He throws a rather obvious look over his shoulder. Any police officer worth a damn would have caught it and taken note, but Elitha’s not worth even that much. “Why don’t we get out of here?”

“I left the Haysian smelt at home.”

“Good.” He nods and hooks his thumbs in two of the many loops and straps adorning his greatcoat. “Where we’re going we won’t need it.”

-

She’s lying about the Haysian smelt, of course, and she thinks he knows it, too, but they live in this impolite fiction as though they are born to it. Her hands tighten into fists behind her back. She has nothing more for him than an angry, pinched frown. He doesn’t ask for more. Better, he doesn’t expect it.

At least he’s smart.

She already knows every trick in his book, so when he coaxes the generator into a low-power state, she’s not surprised. Soon it will die.

Her chin tips up. “We’re not going anywhere with you.”

“So you say.”

-

The jailbreak comes as no surprise, of course, but the careful, deliberate way that DJ dispatches Elitha is. A tap on the shoulder, an arm wrapped with painful intimacy around her neck. A gasp and unconsciousness. A quick jerk of his head toward the backdoor and then freedom. It’s all so easy. Too easy. Once, Rose might have asked if the woman is dead.

She doesn’t even think to ask.

They never should’ve been caught. Small-town jail, small town law enforcement. Might be Elitha isn’t FO at all. Might be she is.

Doesn’t matter.

They’re all gone before night falls.

-

“Wouldn’t it be better if we—” DJ speaks deliberately and makes a fluttering gesture with his fingers. “—out of here?”

“Not until you explain what you’re doing here,” Finn says. They’ve got him cornered in their ship. There’s time yet. Even Rose doesn’t yet feel the itch to get out of here and she’s not taking DJ anywhere if she has any say in it. And certainly not before he tells them everything.

“The F-force works in mysterious ways, don’t they say?”

Rose steps forward. “No.”

“I owe you, then.” He gestures again. “I’m glad neither of you are dead.”

-

She doesn’t sleep. Knowing DJ is bunked elsewhere, that he’s the reason they’re not still stuck on Lothal, it flickers in the back of her mind. He owes them a good turn and much, much more, but there’s no way she’s going to trust him on her ship. No way at all. They’ve already lost so much. He’s not taking this, too.

“Where are you going?” Finn pushes himself up on his elbows, blinks blearily at her from their bed. He reaches for her.

She tugs one of Finn’s sweaters over her tank top.

“I’m going to protect what’s mine.”

-

If he realizes that she’s stationed herself outside his door, he doesn’t notice. She busies herself with minor repairs on an auxiliary control panel nearby. Plausible deniability should he poke his head out and wonder why she’s out here. Not that she needs the excuse. He’ll see through it, the same way he’d seen so clearly through the First Order and the Resistance and the conflict he’d deemed so unimportant. How nice for him to stay out of it for so long only to take sides at the worst possible moment.

How nice that he can sleep through that.

-

“You’re s-searching for your compatriots,” DJ says over a breakfast of grueled protein paste and fortified water. “Very noble.”

“Kriff you,” she replies. Her spoon clacks dully against the side of her bowl. Finn has already found his way to the cockpit, avoiding any and all awkwardness that might spring up between the three of them. He’d had the right idea. Rose wishes she’d thought to do the same.

“Nice thought,” he muses, finger against lip. “But I was thinking credits are the more important concern. There’re only so many places literal fucking can get you.”

She sneers and, worse, listens.

-

He insists he doesn’t believe in their cause, but he speaks like a man determined, his hands and words flying at a hundred thousand miles per second. “How did you even find us?” she asks finally, cutting him off as he outlines a truly outrageous plan to skim money from some First Order sympathizer on Firare Prime.

A look of shame crosses his face. “I wasn’t looking.” He is unable to meet her eyes. “I didn’t find anything. You were just a bit of luck I picked up along the way.”

Rose laughs and it’s only mostly with disdain.

-

DJ returns with a credit chit and singed fingers and the biggest, wildest grin Rose has ever seen. He winks at both of them and Finn has the temerity to look away, embarrassed, possibly for the same reason Rose is embarrassed. It’s a good smile, proud, and, when Rose checks the balance, well-earned. Exceedingly well-earned. She counts the zeroes a second time. “That’s… a lot of credits.”

DJ’s hands wrap around her shoulders, fingertips tapping against her collarbone. He speaks to Finn when he says, “Perhaps we should leave b-before the authorities catch up?”

“Yeah,” Finn answers, equally stunned, “good idea.”

-

“What the hell,” Finn says later, when they’re alone, and they’re the ones holding onto the credit chit. It sits so neatly in the palm of Rose’s hand, but every time she checks the balance, it stays the same. They scan it to within an inch of its life. If DJ wants to screw them, he’ll do it and they can’t stop him, but right now it looks legit.

“Can we trust him?” Rose asks.

“I… don’t know that we can afford not to?” He plucks the chit from her hand. “This is…”

“I know,” but she wishes she didn’t.

-

If they wanted to, they could buy a new ship with the credits they have. They could fund the formation of a new Resistance base. They could disappear forever and survive off the interest payments alone. They could buy all the weapons they could ever hope to want. All with the flick of DJ’s hand, his will and skill the only thing needed to change the game entirely. Rose wants to be mad; she wants to be furious.

Never in a million years could she and Finn have done this.

That sticks with her more than she wants it to.

-

She swears as her wrench falls from her grasp. Her body aches and she half thinks it’s grease that flows through her veins instead of blood. Sweat plasters her hair to her forehead, to the back of her neck. She’s down to her tank and all she can think about is how she could hire a crew to handle this with all those credits DJ secured.

“It’s not easy, is it?” DJ says, perched on a bench across the room. She didn’t know when he showed up. “Being a part of something?”

“It’s easier,” she replies, venomous, “than doing nothing.”

-

“N-nothing?” DJ snorts and his laugh is half-cough, half bitter exhalation. “You think that’s what I do?”

“Worse.” She doesn’t like that he’s snuck up on her. She doesn’t like the way he looks at her. And she most certainly doesn’t feel anything about the desperation she sees in his eyes and how it shouts out to the desperation, well hidden, inside of her. “You’re a collaborator.”

“I believe General Hux would say the same thing right about now.” He crosses his arms, looks her up and down. “And, sad to say it, darling, but he’s got the greater c-claim.”

-

She throws her wrench at the open access panel. A few sparks hiss and sizzle, bounce against the floor and burn out. “The First Order won’t win.”

It’s the strongest she’s felt about anything in a long time and she is deadly certain. With DJ’s help or not, they’d do what they have to do. If it’s just the two of them, she and Finn against the entire First Order, then that’s what it’ll be and she’ll never, ever regret it. She might well die a traitor, but that’s a death she’d accept in a hundred versions of reality, a thousand.

-

In the dark, Finn moves with her, against her. He whispers nonsense into the curls of her hair. She pays it no mind. There’s only one thought she can focus on. “I hate him,” she says and she doesn’t bother whispering. Her words shatter against the walls and fall to the floor. Finn just grips her harder, pulls her closer, says _I know_ and _I know_ and _I know_.

 _I do, too_ , he doesn’t say.

And then it’s Rose who grips him too tightly, pulls at him too fiercely.

DJ’s always been trouble.

And they might need him.

-

“You love me.” Finn’s fingers lace with hers. Sweat cools on her skin and she presses herself against him. He’s always been so much warmer than she is. “I could have been him.”

“You’re not,” Rose answers. She thinks, _I would love you anyway_.

He laughs, like he’s heard what she hasn’t said. “You’d punch me in the face.”

She frowns. “I wo… okay, I would. Only if you deserved it.”

His throat bobs and he licks his lips; he sighs. “I trust him.”

“You like him.”

“Yeah,” he says, “that, too.”

That doesn’t bother Rose like it should.

-

She watches DJ, looks for what Finn sees in him. He stares right back, abandoning his various projects to study her in turn. “Take a holo,” he says, a pout on his mouth. A thought takes her, a ridiculous thought. She’d like to kiss the pout off his face.

He makes her laugh, the belligerent way he responds, the frown that does nothing to diminish his handsomeness. It’s not that funny, but she laughs anyway. He perks up at that, a glint catching in his eye. It’s nothing like what she’d ever expected to want, but she thinks: maybe.

Maybe.

-

The Resistance is dead, bled dry by the First Order, ascendant. They have something now that they didn’t have before. A way forward. A way through.

“Are you with us?” Rose asks. Her hand tightens around Finn’s knuckles and he nods at her. They want him with them. Both of them.

“Got n-nothing the fuck better to do,” DJ answers, shrugging. He can’t look at her. She thinks she gets what he’s not saying and she’s not above using his guilt for greater purposes.

Rose grins and grabs hold of DJ’s hand, too, in only the briefest of squeezes.

It’s enough.


End file.
